All posts by Ang Li

Bahaa Ellaithy (Left) and his friend Ashraf Gad after their prayers in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Photo by ANG LI.

In the southwest corner of Brooklyn lies one of the most diverse city neighborhoods, Bay Ridge. A traditionally Irish and Italian neighborhood, it has witnessed an inflow of large numbers of new residents from Mexico, the Middle East and Asia. Yesterday neighbors were outraged over Trump’s latest executive order temporarily banning travelers from seven mostly Muslims countries and permanently barring refugees from Syria.

Muslims from Bay Ridge participated in recent protests against the ban and are still in shock that Donald Trump was elected president.

“This guy…I don’t know how he won,” said Bahaa Ellaithy, 46, an Egyptian Muslim who teaches math in an Islam private high school. “Until this moment, I couldn’t believe that he became the president of a country like America.”

He strongly objected to the ban saying that it’s unconstitutional and against the values that the country was based on. Ellaithy joined the protest at Battery Park Sunday and had protested in front of Trump Tower ten times.

The nationwide protests give Ellaithy comfort and hope.

“I met a lot of wonderful people in the protests who really believe in freedom, believe in dignity, and believe in that people could live together from all races, religions and ethnicities,” Ellaithy said. “It makes me feel that I’m welcomed and accepted in this country.”

Ashraf Gad, 45, also an Egyptian Muslim, thought that the unprecedented ban was dangerous for all Muslims. He did not understand why those seven countries (Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen) were targeted. He assumed that the selection was due to Trump’s personal views or business interest.

Gad, a pediatrician, wasn’t able to join the rallies because of his busy schedule at the hospital. But he would make some time for upcoming protests regarding this issue.

Paul Khoury, 62, a Lebanese salesman, came to the US at the age of 17 and has been living in the neighborhood for about 30 years. Back from a 10-day vacation in Spain last night, he was surprised to see the large number of people protesting at the airport. Khoury was worried about the direction where the nation was going and his children’s opportunities as policies became less friendly towards immigrants.

“My life is almost at the edge of it,” Khoury said. “I fear for my kids, not for me. They need a peaceful world than this world to live in.”

Bay Ridge residents from other ethnicities also expressed their anger towards the “Muslim Ban.”

Sally McMahon, 63, an Irish American, said for a country of immigrants looking for a better life, she found the whole ban ridiculous. She felt proud to be active in the protests including the Women’s March on NYC.

“I think that the nation is going a terrible way,” McMahon said. “I think the nation will go in a way of fascism and authoritarianism. And I’m very afraid for myself, for the people, for the country and for the world.”

Diana Balcazar, a 43-year-old Mexican mother of three children is concerned about Trump’s next move. She was afraid that she might be forced to go back to Mexico.

“Honestly, this is my country,” Balcazar said. “I’ve almost been here for 30 years. My whole life is here now.”

The interactive refugee camp map and life-size shelter model gave visitors real experience to look closer at refugees’ life. Photo by Ang Li

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) has opened a new exhibition “Insecurities: Tracing Displacement and Shelter” which showcases how refugees live.

Bringing together architects, artists and designers, the exhibition explores the issue of refugee crisis through three angles, borders, shelters, and camp cities, which provided an opportunity for people to look closer into refugees’ lives.

According to United Nations, 65 million people globally are currently displaced due to conflict and persecution. Among them, 21 million have fled their countries and became refugees. In 2015, almost 24 people per minute were forced to leave their homeland.

Insecurities, constant movement, and endless fear that accompany these refugees are presented as a main theme at the exhibition.

The world map made up of wires, circuit boards and speakers at the right hand side of entrance caught Sowmya Lyes’s eyes immediately when she visited the museum yesterday.. As a student majoring in Design at School of Visual Arts, Lyes thought that the map showcased the refugee crisis as a global concern and the wires effectively depicted how entangled, trapped refugees are..

An actual model of refugee camp sponsored by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) was also on display.

“I feel related to those people when seeing this life size refugee shelter as in how difficult it would be to manage a family in such a small space and with such limited resources,” said Deval Mistry, of India. “We can empathize with them about the state they are in right now.”

Andrea Nogales, 34, an elementary school teacher, was impressed with the background sound on site. To simulate the real condition of refugees, the exhibition was surrounded with a harsh, continuous sound similar to civil air defense alarm that refugees have to hear over and over again every day.

“The siren makes you feel like you are on alert all the time and resonate with refugees on one of the reasons why they left their original homes,” Nogales said.

Another eye-opening element is the large refugee camp map projected on the floor. After realizing the impossibility of making a conventional map of an actual refugee camp in Northern Iraq, artists spent a year working on the camp and documenting the spaces. They also built an interactive display that allows visitors to virtually walk through and even enter into the camp with narratives unfolding in front of them. By utilizing multimedia techniques, this pathway is able to tell a personalized story vividly about each refugee to visitors.

“We intend to tell people not only living conditions of these refugees, but also that there is a life for them,” said Sean Anderson, associate curator of MoMA’s Department of Architecture and Design.

Sean Anderson, associate curator in the Department of Architecture and Design at MoMA, is standing in front of the eye-catching and creative map representing the global refugee crisis. Photo by ANG LI.

Refugees don’t know how long they’ll be in a camp. The average length of is 17 years.

“They have a strong belief that they’ll go home one day,” he said. “But if you look at the two images here: one is the world’s largest refugee camp in Northern Kenya, Dadaab, and the other is their destroyed homeland back in Syria last year. Which one looks more like a ‘home’?”

The exhibit also dealt with their education. Over half of the world’s forcibly displaced population is children, making education a key concern in refugee shelters. The tools like School-in-a-Box, distributed by UNICEF and UNHCR, contains materials to set up a makeshift school for up to 80 students.

School-in-a-Box, provided by UNICEF and UNHCR, contains materials to set up a makeshift school for up to 80 students. Photo by Ang Li

“As a teacher myself, School-in-a-Box is appealing to me,” Nogales said. “It seemed awesome that we were able to at least provide the refugee camps with the tools they need to have some education as they continue to struggle through their day-to-day life.”

The refugee camp map also showed clear classification in different sections based on which place they were originally from.

“They have made it their home,” Mistry said, “They do follow their own lifestyle that they used to back home. They have given in that it is their new home, but the hope is still there.”

Lathan Dennis-Singh, an aerospace engineer from Fairfax, Virginia, is one of the subjects in the Sikh: Turban & Identity exhibition in Soho. Photo by Ang Li.

Sikh leaders say they do not have it easy. They face bigotry and many other forms of discrimination, but the optimism and hope the community shares is on display in the photo exhibition, Sikh: Turban & Identity.

Presented by the Sikh Coalition, whose mission is to fight bigotry aimed at this South Asian religion. The Soho pop-up exhibit features 40 men and women in turbans and was photographed by British photographers, Amit and Naroop.

One of the photography subjects, Raghuvinder Singh, was born in India and has lived in New Jersey for the last decade with his wife and two children. In the photo, his smile is of pure happiness. But his life was not as joyful as he looks in the photo. Four years ago, a gunman walked into the Sikh Gurdwara (Sikh house of worship) in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, killing six Sikhs and injuring several including Raghuvinder’s father, Baba Punjab Singh, who was left paralyzed and unable to speak. He e can only communicate by blinking.

Lathan Dennis-Singh, aerospace engineer of Fairfax, Virginia, was also photographed for the exhibit, He became homeless at 13 and came to the United States in 1967 on a scholarship to study at the University of Michigan. It is at college where he became involved with and finally adopted Sikhism. He faced discrimination at the workplace.

“There was no group like the Sikh Coalition that could come forward and stand for me,” he said. “Today, it’s a little bit different. There are more laws to protect the victims of Sikh discrimination, bullying, and hate crimes. This is why the exhibition is so important. It can reach the wider society.”

With a spirit of Chardi Kala (eternal optimism) in mind, he believed that the power of love, the kindness to help others, and public awareness could eventually combat the hate Sikhs were facing.

Growing up in a small town of North Carolina, Jagmeet Singh, now the Media and Communications Manager at the Sikh Coalition, said that he had experienced bullying as a child because of his long hair, turban and beard.

He joined the Sikh Coalition last year and has been using his communication and media skills to work for Sikhs’ civil rights.

“Besides legal aid that we provide for Sikh individuals experiencing harassment, discrimination, and violence, we also help to change policies so that there is less systematic discrimination,” he said. “We work to educate the public about Sikhism. We are also trying to track where the violence against Sikhs is happening. Soft discrimination is also included, like you walk down the street, and someone calls you a terrorist. But that’s much harder to track.”

Satjeet Kaur, the development and communications director for the Sikh Colaition believes education is the key to resolve their problems. The public should not only be told what the Sikh faith is, but also be able to find similarities over differences and to have a positive association through story sharing.

“When you see the turban and beard, there’s nothing to fear,” said Kaur. “Our vision is that when you walk through this photo exhibition, you can connect with people on a very basic human level. Instead of just seeing an image of person with turban and beard, I saw somebody that was a survivor; I saw somebody that was resilient; I saw somebody that has the best smile I’ve ever seen. And that’s what we want people to walk away with.”